2015 declared International Year of the Snow Leopard to help conservation efforts for the endangered cats.

Ladakh, India - On a recent June evening, as the sun cast the day's final, crimson rays over the mountains surrounding Saspochey, a hamlet at 3,658 metres in the Indian Himalayan region of Ladakh, Sherab Dolma prepared her living room for guests.

An old Ladakhi stove with intricate metal work took centre stage in the room. Soft, warm carpets hugged the floor and traditional kitchen utensils stood neatly stacked in a wardrobe. A young boy with sunburned cheeks and a dirty, green hat stormed in and out of the room.

As her guests seated themselves, Dolma served hot tea in delicate ceramic cups.

Dolma has been running a homestay for three years, letting out rooms with stunning views over the Zanskar range. Tourists flock to her tiny hamlet in the hope of spotting a special guest - the snow leopard, a wild cat that thrives in high mountain terrains.

It is estimated that India is home to 400-700 snow leopards of a global population of 4,500-6,500, spread across 12 countries.

As part of conservation efforts, these countries have declared 2015 as the International Year of the Snow Leopard and have been promoting cross-country projects to save the endangered cats.

Ladakh - in the state of Jammu and Kashmir - with 60 percent of India's snow leopard population, is well known among wildlife enthusiasts for offering some of the best sightings of snow leopards.

That helps Dolma business.

"I earn 30,000 Indian rupees ($472) per year from the homestay business. The snow leopard and other wildlife here are like jewels," Dolma said as she prepared a meal in her compact kitchen.

A few years ago, Dolma wouldn't have spoken so kindly about snow leopards.

"I had lost many sheep and goats to snow leopards. So had many others in the village. That left us in a lot of loss. We were helpless. People would even go after snow leopards to kill them," she said.

The biggest threat to snow leopard populations globally is this conflict with humans . Decrease in the number of natural prey species leads to snow leopards hunting livestock. This in turn triggers retaliatory killing by herders and farmers.

Tsewang Namgail, director of the SLC-IT, who was visiting the village to raise awareness accompanied by a handful of his cheerful Ladakhi staff and international volunteers, told Al Jazeera how his organisation worked with the villagers.

"People in these remote areas live under poor conditions. They have to think about their day-to-day struggle," Namgail explained.

"When we go to a village and ask them to protect snow leopards, they sometimes laugh at us because they lose livestock to snow leopards," he said.

"We also wanted to improve their livelihoods. That's when we started the Himalayan Homestays," Namgail told Al Jazeera.

The Himalayan Homestay program, which began in 2003, seeks to reduce the dependence of the herders on livestock and the pressure on the pasture lands, allowing natural prey species like the Tibetan blue sheep to thrive.

Snow leopards belong to what's termed an umbrella species - a species that symbolises the health of an entire eco-system.

"Snow leopard is an apex predator so they are very important. When we work towards conserving this species, in the process we are helping a lot of other species," Namgail said.

Sitting in his office in Leh, Ladakh's administrative capital, Jigmet Takpa , chief conservator of Forests for Ladakh told Al Jazeera of the historical and cultural significance of hunting that has led to a decline in snow leopard numbers.

"Ladakhis, whether Buddhist or non-Buddhist, were hunters. They were poaching. It is in the culture. Even today, the hunting ceremony is still conducted during Losar (a Buddhist celebration)," Takpa told while looking at the view of snow-capped mountains through his window.

"This led to fast depletion of already scarce wildlife in the region," Takpa explained.

Takpa criticised the conventional notion of conservation, saying that it is a tough task to restore a previously depleted ecosystem like Ladakh.

"All over the world and even in rest of India people think conservation means taking a big chunk of area which has a good biological value and declaring it as a conservation reserve. And this normally involves displacing all the people who live inside the area. This is based on the theory that man and wildlife cannot coexist," Takpa said.

The Forest Department approach is contrary to this line of thinking, said Takpa. "We say human beings and wildlife have to coexist and help each other in sustaining themselves."

The government has followed in the footsteps of the SLC-IT, and is now running homestays in national park areas.

The conservation programs do not benefit everyone in the vast deserts of Ladakh.

There were unconfirmed reports about a snow leopard having been killed the previous month in Tar, a sleepy village with about 12 homes right across the valley from Saspochey.

A two-hour hike up from the main road, Tar has no access to electricity or medical facilities. Most residents are in their 50s and 60s, the younger generation having left in search of better educational and career opportunities.

Tsering Dolkar, a 60-year-old woman with a wrinkly face, is the appointed head of the village. Dolkar complained about the losses the villagers endured due to snow leopard and Tibetan wolf attacks on livestock.

"Last year, one of my goats was killed right here," Dolkar said, pointing towards a green terrace on her fields.

"This year we lost 20 of our livestock already. We don't go and file complaints or reports because nothing comes of it," she said with visible disappointment.

Dolkar said a few years ago a government official had come to evaluate whether Tar could have homestays but she never heard back from them.

"How can we kill a snow leopard?" Dolkar said of the rumours.

"We saw a dead snow leopard but it must have slipped off the cliffs and fallen down," Dolkar said, shrugging her shoulders.

As for the human-animal conflict, "What can we do?" said Dolkar helplessly. "Nothing".

In Nicaragua, young transgender people face violence and discrimination on a daily basis. Often, their families won't accept their identity change and throw them out of the house at an early age. These homeless youths often have to resort to sex work to survive. Pulse tracked some of them down on the streets of Managua to find out more.

Listen to the story here: http://www.dw.com/en/transgender-youths-in-nicaragua-selling-their-bodies-to-survive/av-18446605

Tucson, United States - The stench of death and decay hung over the morgue at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner where dozens of white body bags lay on metal trays on a warm February afternoon.

"We have 90 unidentified remains at the facility right now," Dr Greg Hess, the chief medical examiner, told Al Jazeera, pointing at body trays on the right side of the room. "Most of these people we believe to be undocumented border crossers."

About 100km from Hess' office, thousands of migrants have tried to cross the US-Mexico border through the US state of Arizona, which cuts through the arid Sonoran desert where summer temperatures soar above 40°C.

Many poorly equipped migrants, hiking for days on end, eventually succumb to the adverse conditions. Since 2001, the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner has received more than 2,200 recovered remains of suspected migrants crossing the US-Mexico border.

Dr Hess unzipped a body bag with an "Unknown" name tag to reveal the limited contents within.

"Here, [this is] not uncommon. We have a skull and a little bit of property. What are the odds that we will identify this person in a very timely manner? Probably very small," he said.

In 2013, 168 migrant deaths were recorded in Pima County, and 95 of the bodies remain unidentified.

The Medical Examiner's Office routinely works with the Colibri Centre for Human Rights , an NGO that assists families to find remains of their loved ones who disappear at the borderlands.

The Colibri Centre was established amid the increasing discovery of unidentified remains of border crossers since the early 2000s.

In a tiny office, Chelsea Halstead, programme manager at the Colibri Centre, sifted through folders of missing persons' reports.

"People started calling here to try and find their loved ones who had died while crossing. They couldn't call the police because there were language issues or jurisdictional issues, or because the person in question wasn't an American citizen. In other cases, they were too scared to call the police," Halstead told Al Jazeera.

Halstead and her small team at the Colibri Centre take detailed missing person's reports from families calling in, then catalogue and compare them with profiles of unidentified remains that come into the Medical Examiner's Office across the hallway.

In some cases, they successfully find a match and help return the skeletal remains and property to bereaved families.

"Death is a social experience. Even though it's sad and it's difficult, it's social and it's important for the community," Halstead said. "When you don't have a body, you don't have that socially agreed upon narrative of what happened to this person. You don't get to collectively pass them along to the land of the dead."

Jasmin Morales' is one such family currently seeking help from the Colibri Centre. Jasmin's brother, Julio Cesar Morales, disappeared in 2009 while trying to cross from Mexico along with Jasmin and their father.

"My brother wanted to find work. In the town where we used to live [Tierra Blanca in Veracruz, Mexico], there is not much work," Jasmin told Al Jazeera over the phone.

Under these conditions, many such as Julio make the perilous journey north in search of a better life.

Jasmin, her brother, and their father spent a week in the Sonoran desert. At the end of the journey, they lost Julio after an encounter with US Border Patrol agents one night.

"To be honest, I don't know what happened to my brother because the desert is something ugly," Jasmin said. "I'd love to find my brother alive, at least for my mother because she has the hope that he is still alive."

Jasmin, however, acknowledged the reality that her brother could be dead.

"They [Colibri Center] asked me for authorisation so they can look for him in the morgue. They told me it has been many years since he disappeared. So, it will be God's will. I don't really know if he is in prison or dead, but we want to know what really happened."

Mexican migrants didn't always take the arduous Arizonan desert route to cross into the US.

Todd Miller, author of the book Border Patrol Nation : Dispatches from the Frontlines of Homeland Security, told Al Jazeera that border-security policies over the years have pushed people to trek through the unforgiving desert.

"The operations that took hold in the mid-1990s cut off traditional immigration routes in urban areas such as El Paso or Nogales or San Diego, creating a funnel effect. People were funnelled into areas that were supposed to be a deterrent, a lethal deterrent," he said.

In 1990, eight undocumented-person deaths were recorded in Pima County, compared to 225 in 2010.

Increased militarisation of the US-Mexico border explains the expanding budgets, Miller said. "Forward operating bases only used to be in Iraq and Afghanistan. But now you'll see it on the southwest borderlands."

At the foothills of the Silver Bell mountains deep in the Sonoran desert, civil society group No More Deaths routinely conducts search-and-rescue operations to help migrants in distress.

On a recent February afternoon, a team of volunteers navigated through the vast landscape dotted with saguaro cacti.

"We get calls in distress that report someone in a group has started vomiting or started having diarrhoea. Often we also hear that people felt so sick that they were left behind," volunteer Genevieve Schroeder told Al Jazeera.

"On the map the Silver Bell Mountains are like 70 miles [110 km] from the border, but the walking distance could be double that," she said.

"People weren't going this far a few years ago and now they are. They are now taking one of the longest routes that they could be forced to take," Schroeder said.

In 2005, the US Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice implemented Operation Streamline, an initiative that subjects undocumented migrants to criminal prosecution, prison sentences, and deportation.

Schroeder said Operation Streamline has a direct impact on the number of deaths along the border.

"The deaths are happening further and further north of the country. People are putting themselves at higher and higher levels of risk, not seeking out rescue even when they are sick, even when they are lost, even when they have fallen behind because they may be facing a very lengthy prison sentence."

As the sun set over the desert, painting the sky in vivid shades of crimson, Schroeder's colleague Maryada Vallet expressed their organisation's collective frustration.

"The number of human remains that we find here every year is as if a Boeing aircraft had to crash in our desert every single year since the last 10 years. And we still can't figure out that this is a humanitarian crisis and not a law enforcement issue?"

Oklahoma City, United States - It's an American tradition that dates back hundreds of years to the time of cowboys herding hoards of cattle across the vast plains. But some today are raising concerns that rodeo competition with raging bulls and broncos inflicts cruelty upon the animals.

"Did you watch what I just watched? Because you're not clapping enough… I can't hear you," the commentator at the 44th International Finals Rodeo hollered over the microphone.

Spectators at the stadium, dressed in their best cowboy and cowgirl attire, acknowledged his request and gave a generous round of applause.

At the centre of everyone's attention, cowboys competed in the bareback bronco-riding event in the International Professional Rodeo Finals at the Oklahoma State Fair Arena.

A bucking horse with a cowboy atop was unleashed into the arena. Dramatic music filled the air, drowning out the commentators' voices. The horse galloped and bucked, throwing up its hind legs - sometimes as high as two metres off the ground.

'Part of my life'

Shawn Minor, 39, from Nebraska was one of the performers at the recent event. Minor told Al Jazeera he always wanted to be a cowboy.

"I was probably five or six years old and my father rodeoed and rode saddle broncs, and it's just been a part of my life ever since … since I was born. I never thought that I would be anything else but a cowboy."

Minor went on to win his ninth all-round title the following day, and took home prize money worth more than $15,000 from the weekend rodeo.

While he chewed tobacco that afternoon, Minor, who has won 21 world titles, said the fame, glory and money aren't the only things that keep him on the professional rodeo circuit.

"It [being a cowboy] means being down-to-earth… It's not the easiest way of life… It means everything to me. The tradition goes back 200 years, you know. I'm trying to keep the tradition alive," he said, adding his two young sons want to grow up to be cowboys too.

Minor has been on the professional circuit for 12 years now and said he's definitely seen the sport changing over time.

"Back in the 60s, 70s, 80s, there were a lot of great cowboys, but most of them would just go to town on the weekends, go to a rodeo and then they'd go back to the ranch. Nowadays with the sponsors and the TV and all that stuff, you can make a good living out of it."

'Rodeos terrorise animals'

According to sociologist Gene Theodori, who has conducted research on Western tradition and contemporary rodeos, there's been a natural evolution from cattle ranches to the way the competitions are conducted today.

"After months of strenuous labour moving cattle through the country, cowboys would get together and celebrate. For amusement at the end of the trail, they would gather and compare their roping and riding skills," he wrote about the origins of rodeo in the post-Civil War era in the US.

Organised rodeos, as they are today, started gaining popularity in the early 1920s. Today, they also play a symbolic role in contemporary society by trying to preserve America's "Wild West" culture.

Back at the State Fair Arena in Oklahoma City, spectators and participants got ready for the tie-down roping competition.

A cowboy mounted his horse. Right next to him was a small caged enclosure.

As soon as the gate to the cage was opened, a timid-looking calf came sprinting out.

The cowboy riding his horse followed the running calf and lassoed it. In a second, the calf came crashing down to the ground with the lasso pulling it by the neck. Swiftly, the cowboy dismounted the horse, ran to the struggling steer, and in one quick movement tied its front legs and a hind leg together with his rope.

Proud of his achievement - having clocked less than nine seconds - the performer punched a celebratory fist into the air and walked out.

The breathless calf, with its tongue hanging out, lay on the ground waiting to be untied.

Roughed up

The treatment of broncos and steers at rodeos has attracted sharp criticism by animal rights groups.

"Rodeos terrorise animals and provoke them into behaving fiercely and aggressively. They use cruel electric prods, bucking straps, and all of these cause wounds or dig in to the animals' sensitive tissues," Emma Vaughan, a spokeswoman for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) told Al Jazeera.

Vaughan said injuries to animals such as deep internal organ bleeding, hemorrhaging, fractures, ripped tendons, and torn ligaments and muscles "are common occurrences in rodeos".

"I have seen cattle [from rodeos] so extensively bruised that the only areas where skin was attached was the head, necks, legs and belly," said CG Haber, a veterinarian who worked as a meat inspector in a slaughterhouse, where rodeo animals often end up.

"The horses that are used in the bucking events - the bareback horses and the saddle bronc horses - those horses can't be rode. If they weren't used in rodeos, they don't have another purpose. So it actually extends their life and gives them a place to go and perform and live out a long, full life," Yerigan said.

The IPRA is responsible for putting together a standardised set of rules for the events it sanctions. "In the current rule book, there are over 80 rules that pertain to the care and treatment of livestock and what the penalties are if somebody does something that they shouldn't," Yerigan told Al Jazeera.

Although there are penalties and fines in place, Yerigan admitted none of the participants had ever been charged with mistreatment of animals in any rodeos across the country in the history of IPRA.

Weak protection

Some states and municipalities within the US do impose legal restrictions on rodeos.

For instance, tie-down or calf roping is illegal in the state of Rhode Island. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania has strict restrictions on the use of electric prods. Internationally, rodeos are banned in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

Spectators at the Oklahoma State Fair grounds watched with rapt attention at the last event - bull riding.

Cowboy after cowboy rode on big, ferocious bulls. The stadium came alive with hoots, cheers, jeers and chants.

Ray Quintanilla, 43, from Choctaw, Oklahoma seemed to be enjoying the action. Quintanilla had watched bull riding on TV many times and wanted to see the action live. He said it lived up to his expectations and doesn't find much wrong or unethical about it.

"It's very fun and family-oriented. We have two daughters, so we kind of wanted to check it out first and see if they would enjoy it - and we think they would," Quintanillasaid.

He told Al Jazeera the next time the rodeo came to Oklahoma City, he would bring his children along.

Eco-friendly New Mexico houses made of garbage such as old tyres, beer cans, and glass bottles have gone mainstream.

Taos, United States - It was an ordinary evening at the Elsasser household in New Mexico. As the reddish sun set over the vast desert, Grey, 4, and Dusty, 6, enthusiastically joined their father to bake cookies.

While keeping one eye on his rambunctious children, who stealthily dug into the sugar jar and stuffed their mouths full, and another on the pets - three dogs and a fluffy black cat over the kitchen top - Ted Elsasser explained why their one-bedroom home is so special.

"We're completely off the grid. We produce our own electricity with solar panels, harvest water, and treat our sewage all within the house," he told Al Jazeera, adding that the exterior walls were built using recycled truck tyres, empty beer cans, and glass bottles pounded with mud.

Elsasser has lived in dwellings such as these for 20 years and said he can't imagine being back on the grid again.

Elsasser and his family live in an Earthship surrounded by 70 other families who reside in the Greater World community that sprawls over 257 hectares of New Mexico's desert. He built his own Earthship home for $110 per square foot using 85 percent of his labour, about half as much as an Earthship would cost with a professional crew. These half-buried structures with colourful glass bottles artistically embedded are the brainchild of Michael Reynolds.

On a bright and sunny weekday, Reynolds, 69, walked briskly taking stock of goings on at a busy construction site in the community. A dozen people - architects, electricians, gardeners, volunteers - were finishing up work on a new Earthship. Reynolds strode across the building, stopping every now and then to have a second look, taking mental notes and giving instructions to those at work. The silver-haired architect said he felt the need to create Earthships because of what was happening around him.

"I started responding to what appeared to me to be problems with how people live on this planet, and one of them was garbage. Why do we throw away these fantastic materials like bottles that will never deteriorate?" Reynolds said.

Homes made of trash

According to a report released by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 251 million tonnes of trash were produced in the United States in 2012. Only 44 percent of automobile tyres, one of the main materials used for building an Earthship, were successfully recycled that year.

"Now recycling has turned out to be an industry," Reynolds said. "That uses up as much energy, in my opinion, as manufacturing them anyway."

One of the main principles of an Earthship is the use of thermal mass. It is built about 1.2 metres under the surface of the earth, where the temperature remains more or less stable, so there's no need to use fossil fuels to heat or cool a home.

Another important aspect is use of water. All Earthships utilise and re-utilise water harvested from rain and snow. Household sewage is treated and used to grow food in "grey water planters", as well as for flushing toilets. Sewage from toilets is then contained in an outdoor botanical cell called a "black water planter".

Reynolds' experiments to find sustainable ways of living were once questioned by the mainstream architecture community.

"I was an idiot for building out of garbage," he recalled. "I have been persecuted for doing this - for treating sewage in the house or building the house out of garbage."

Reynolds was referring to the time when the state of New Mexico took away his architect's license about a decade ago. He got it back in 2007, only after agreeing to comply with state rules.

"But people are starting to realise that maybe there is something to look at here. It is going more mainstream," he said.

Today there are Earthships in 50 US states and more than 25 countries worldwide.

Sustainable living

On a cold, windy winter evening, Phil Basehart, a 44-year-old architect and foreman at the Earthship Biotecture company is hard at work. He took Al Jazeera on a tour of a new model of building he was working on.

"This is what we call the global Earthship," Basehart said. "It's the best we have come up with so far. And it's a combination of 40 years of research we have done on how to build something that will allow us to live sustainably."

The global model of Earthships is a move towards entering the mainstream housing market.

"We're trying to present it as something that somebody who has never lived like this can walk in here and be absolutely comfortable. It costs as much as any other house of the kind you'll find on the market, but the difference is that you won't be paying any utility bills once you've moved in," Basehart told Al Jazeera.

Basehart said the best way to promote it is by passing on the skills to the next generation. And that's exactly what he does when he's not wearing his architect's hat. He's a teacher at the Earthship Academy, which hosts between 30-60 students from around the world seven times a year.

"Housing has a huge impact on the planet. The idea is to plant a seed and let them grow it however they want to. The demand is growing and that gives us hope that people, whether it's with us or without us, will make things better," Basehart said, before returning to work.

'Give something back'

David Nacmanie, a music teacher from Maryland, was a student at the Earthship Academy in August 2014. He had been exploring sustainable living options when he came across it.

"I had some time and money on my hands, so I thought I'd go and find out whether it was actually what they were claiming to be, or was it just fake," Nacmanie told Al Jazeera. "Earthships absolutely do everything they claim they to do."

After the six-week course, Nacmanie said he was equipped to build Earthships and adapt them to his surroundings.

He said he's thinking about building an Earthship community in Maryland, outside Washington DC, that could provide affordable housing to people who can't keep up with increasing real estate prices.

"I don't only want to build an Earthship home for myself, but I also want to give something back to my community," he said.

Of course Earthships aren't the only answer to sustainable living.

Communities around the world are experimenting with different kinds of ecologically sound homes, said Joshua Lockyer, a cultural anthropologist at Arkansas Tech University LINK, who has conducted research on the subject.

"I have only encountered very few Earthships in the eco-villages I have visited. So it's just one component of the mission to live sustainably and in a satisfying way that involves everything from building techniques to production material, forestry and land management, to figuring out how to cooperate with one another and make decisions together," Lockyer said.

Back in Taos, Elsasser builds homes for other people too and not just Earthships. He runs his own construction company, Taos Off Grid, and recently was contracted to build a house out of waste materials such as shipping containers and hay bales.

Elsasser stressed that different solutions in different places are key to living sustainably.

"Earthships are great, but there are a lot of other brilliant solutions out there too."

Source: Al Jazeera EnglishTirana, Albania - Bujar Hyka and his friends headed out in their jeep west of Albania's capital on a recent Sunday morning. Dressed in camouflage, the men navigated the vehicle through rough terrain with three restless English Setters eagerly waiting to jump out. A year ago, this would have been a hunting trip. But under Albania's new anti-hunting law, Hyka and his friends have been forbidden to kill animals and now simply hike weaponless through the country's pristine wilderness. "The government doesn't understand that hunting is a sport; they are ruining our sport," said Hyka, 59, head of one of Albania's hunters and fishermen's organisations. "It's like someone taking a football away from footballers." Earlier this year, the Albanian government imposed a two-year moratorium on all hunting to save its endangered animal population. Reports suggest 30-50 percent of Albania's wildlife species have seen asteep decline in the past decade. Hunting is one of the main reasons for the loss. Among the endangered species in the country are the Balkan lynx, the Egyptian vulture, the Dalmatian pelican, the European eel, and the Albanian water frog. Hyka said the government's measures are totalitarian. "This is like being under a dictatorship once again." He said the moratorium targeted licensed hunters such as himself who already follow the rules, and not illegal hunters or poachers. Awash with weapons Albania was isolated from the rest of the world for four decades under the rule of communist dictator Enver Hoxha. After Hoxha's death, the country began a transition to parliamentary democracy in 1992. But Albania experienced civil unrest in 1996-97, and stockpiles of military weaponry and ammunition fell into civilian hands. Shotguns and AK-47 assault rifles became common household items. During Hoxha's dictatorship, only members of the politburo were allowed to hunt. But with an abundance of weapons, more people embraced the sport. Estimates suggest there are about 270,000 guns, owned legally and illegally, in the country with a population of just three million. The Karavasta lagoon is about 50 kilometres south of where Hyka and his friends hunted ducks and other birds. The lagoon, one of the largest along the Mediterranean Sea, is a famous nesting ground for the endangered Dalmatian pelicans. At 6am on a recent Saturday, Taulant Bino, Albania's most renowned ornithologist and former deputy environment minister, stood on an observatory tower in the park counting the pelicans through his telescope. "There's a flock of 55 individuals over there. Would you like to watch them? There's one that has an orange pouch. That means it's in its reproductive or breeding season." Albania's coast is part of what's called the Adriatic Flyway zone - an important resting spot for birds migrating between Europe and Africa. According to figures from EuroNatur, an NGO that runs conservation programmes in the region, an estimated two million birds were being hunted along the Adriatic coast before the moratorium came into effect. The Dalmatian pelicans that Bino watched that day have become a symbol of the threat migratory birds face from excessive hunting. "These pelicans are important because they are big and beautiful. But that's not all: They serve as a symbol of the ecosystem. So it is considered by us as a flagship species, and by protecting the pelicans we try to protect the other bird species and the site itself." Hunting hideouts As the sun climbed higher in the sky, Bino and his assistant, who are compiling a report for the Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA), did a brisk tour of the slushy lagoon. A calm breeze drifted along the coast. Bino raised an alarm. He had spotted some hunting hideouts. "Look there, you see that structure? ... It is not natural. It could be used as a hunting hide at night. And you see another one there - it's primitive, but it's there." According to Bino, this is evidence that hunting hasn't come to a full stop, not even in the protected zone of Karavasta National Park. There's was more evidence. "We saw a group of ducks in the sea. That's a clear sign of disturbance and hunting." While driving through the park, Bino met up with Ardian Koci, the director of the Forestry Service. He showed Koci photos of the hunting hideouts he had discovered, and after careful examination Koci said he would destroy them. Koci said the biggest challenge to implementing the hunting moratorium is cultural. "The locals have been hunting here for many, many years, and now it seems strange for them to stop hunting. I have explained to them that it's not a question of the moratorium, but this is a preserved area and the hunting ban will be imposed for years after." Later that afternoon Karavasta National Park received a special visitor. Albania's Prime Minister Edi Rama toured the park and later told journalists the hunting ban has been successful. "Thanks to the moratorium, we have a resurgence, we have revitalisation of the wildlife here and this in turn also revitalises humans, who have become enemies of nature by destroying certain species." The minimum punishment for breaking the law is confiscation of weapons as well as a fine of 100,000 Albanian lek ($1,000). However, that doesn't hold back many still seeking the pleasures of hunting. At a crowded Italian restaurant in downtown Tirana, an Albanian man in his early 40s, who asked not to be identified, told Al Jazeera he knows people who continue to hunt despite the moratorium. "A friend called me yesterday from the mountains in Tropojë in the north of Albania. He was hunting for deer just yesterday. It's still possible to hunt in the interiors where the police cannot do any surveillance." He added, almost proudly, "If I wanted to go hunting, I could go as well ... All you need are local contacts. You don't carry arms with you in your vehicle, just drive where you know someone who can assist you, sometimes even in the police." Al Jazeera's repeated requests for comment were not answered by the Environment Ministry. Gun sales down Kastriot Xhani is the owner of Albania's oldest gun shop, located in the heart of Tirana. "I lost a majority of my business. People are thinking, 'why should I buy guns now if I am not going to be able to use it during this two-year moratorium? I'd rather wait it out and buy after these two years.'" Xhani, who described himself as a nature lover, admitted that hunting in Albania had gotten out of hand. He blamed the illegal hunters. "They did not and still don't respect hunting seasons," he said. Xhani said if the Albanian government "would really crack down on these illegal hunters ... I would even agree to a five-year moratorium".

Many artists are using their work to raise social, economic, and political issues in Kosovo post independence.

Pristina, Kosovo - The female artists never thought people would threaten to behead them for sharing a kiss in this city's main square and putting a photo of it on Facebook.

"We were very scared when we got death threats," Hana Qena, 26, said nervously. "That's when we realised we'd done something very provocative."

Hana is part of the Haveit Collective - an art group comprised of a pair of sisters in Kosovo, the southeast European country that declared independence in 2008, but is still fighting for complete international recognition. Serbia continues to claim it as part of its territory.

Hana's sister Vesa Qena, 23, is also part of the group, along with two other sisters - 26-year-old Lola Sylaj and Alketê, 23.

Last Valentine's Day, the Haveit Collective attracted attention to their performance in Kosovo's capital, Pristina, when they decided to kiss each other and then uploaded the photos to their Facebook profile.

Although homosexuality is legal in Kosovo, there is stigma attached to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community here.

After the performance, the group was taken in for interrogation by police but eventually set free after they said they weren't lesbians. The four women went home thinking they would get a few "Likes" on Facebook, that's all.

"When we woke up the next day, we were shocked. The photo had gone viral and we received over 100 death threats," Hana told Al Jazeera.

Vesa - quieter and more reserved of the two - added: "People with extreme religious views wrote in saying they would behead us," gesturing with her finger across her throat.

Kosovo - where a bloody one-year-long war ended in 1999 - has a predominantly Albanian-Muslim population.

"With the performance we challenged people's religious ideas here. They were upset. LGBT rights are not really spoken about here," Lola said.

Art and intervention

The Haveit Collective - like many other independent artists in Kosovo - is using art to raise social and political issues in the country. In the three years since it organised, the collective has held street interventions about domestic violence, suppression of LGBT rights, and extreme nationalism.

"When Kosovo fell under direct Serbian administration in the 1990s, art and art institutions weren't accessible for Kosovar Albanians - the majority of the population," Heta said. "It was during this time that the idea of a contemporary art scene started to develop, but it happened under a very restrictive environment. After the war, this scene continued but more openly."

Heta said art in Kosovo now is more than just pretty pictures. "Today, art or artists are not here just to decorate this society, but also to reflect and criticise," he said.

Kosovo is one of Europe's poorest countries. It suffers from an unemployment rate of about 45 percent, and people here earn an average salary of just $20 a day.

Kosovo is also dogged by a political stalemate as the Democratic Party of Kosovo, which won the most seats in the June elections, has failed to form a coalition government.

Cultural transformation

Alban Muja, 34, is a visual artist and film-maker who grew up in Pristina. He met with Al Jazeera at a popular cafe. "As an artist I am always trying to research how social, political and cultural transformation is going on in the region," Muja said, puffing on a cigarette.

One of Muja's important works is a documentary titled Blue wall red door . "The film is about how people in Pristina don't use street names. Why? Because in the last 20 years, they changed the name of the streets five to six times depending on who's in power," he said.

Muja is one of the few Kosovar artists to have travelled around the world with his work. "What you learn while travelling, no school can teach you. But unfortunately, most artists here can't travel freely because of restrictive visa policies," said Muja.

According to the latest visa restrictions index, Kosovo ranks 80th alongside Iran and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Invariably, every Kosovar artist laments about the troubles faced while trying to acquire visas.

Conceptual artist Flaka Haliti currently explores the topic in an artwork at the National Art Gallery in Pristina.

On a massive glass installation, Haliti etches in bold a fictitious resolution by UNESCO to allow free global movement of artists.

" It's a lie that UNESCO is finally giving immunity to artists wanting to live and travel abroad," she told Al Jazeera on the opening evening of her exhibition. "I don't want to give hope to some artists who are desperate to get this. But I am trying to communicate to people who never think about these issues."

Minority art

For other artists such as Bajram and Farija Mehmeti, being recognised is itself a big challenge. The minority Roma siblings live modestly in Lepina - a small village about a half hour's drive from Pristina.

Roma along with Serbs are among the most discriminated groups in Kosovo. After the war, Roma who continued to live in Kosovo were placed in camps spread out across the country.

Bajram and Farija go about their daily routine like any other villagers - collecting wood for the household, working on the farm, and other household chores. When they get time off, they get on with their art.

"Our art is inspired by the Roma way of life, what we see around us. I paint landscapes and sceneries and my sister does portraits," Bajram, 34, said shyly. The siblings proudly led Al Jazeera to their studio - a hut with many finished and some incomplete canvases.

Farija, 36, showed her portraits one after the other. Each depicted a Roma woman dressed in traditional clothes and accessories. "One is for 50 euros [$64]," she said sounding disappointed.

Her younger brother jumped into the conversation. "We can't really live off our work… It's very hard for us to survive just with our art."

Back in Pristina, a Roma film festival "Rolling Films" opened at the National Theatre. Sami Mustafa, a 28-year-old Roma documentary film-maker, echoed Bajram's words. "It is hard and challenging to survive as a film-maker in Kosovo. But as a Roma film-maker, it's double as hard and challenging," he said.

Mustafa pointed out a majority of the Roma community in Kosovo suffer from abject poverty. "It's very hard to inspire youngsters to participate in art when there's no real monetary incentive. We try but it's really difficult."

"The art institutions in the country aren't up to date," said Lulzim Zeqiri, 35. "I studied painting at the Faculty of Art in Pristina, but I wouldn't go there again because the way they perceive art there is very rigid. There are also very few spaces in Kosovo for independent and alternative art to flourish."

Kosovo's Minister for Culture, Youth and Sport Memli Krasniqi told Al Jazeera many of the artists' complaints were valid.

"Firstly, I think that young artists need to complain. They have to. It is true that we lack cultural infrastructure, but I'm happy to say that we've tripled the budget for the public as well as the private art scene. I am aware that it's still not enough and we're working on that," Krasniqi said at his office.

Krasniqi himself was a rapper before stepping into politics. It might seem like a strange career shift, but Krasniqi disagreed.

"My music and lyrics were political, social and very rebellious in a way… With music you can influence people, but it's hard to affect change. The best way to change things is to get involved in politics."

Internationally acclaimed painter Jakup Ferri said he doesn't want people only to think about war when Kosovo is mentioned. "We need to talk beyond nationalism, beyond borders, and think as citizens of this world," said Ferri.

On a recent afternoon, Ahmet Muhsin Tuzer recites the Muslim call to prayer in the Turkish village of Pinarbasi - part of his regular religious duties.Then the 42-year-old imam returns home to blast a few of his favourite heavy rock tunes: Iron Maiden's "Fear of the dark", Pink Floyd's "Hey you" and Metallica's "Wherever I may roam." He sways his head rhythmically."If God allows," Tuzer shouts above the thundering chords, "I would love to play music in front of hundreds of thousands of people like they did."

While Tuzer has had a small taste of that ambition – his own band, FiRock, performed this summer in front of 1,000 people in his hometown of Kas, a tourist city on Turkey's Mediterranean coast – the state does not appear impressed by his musical talent. Turkey's government-funded religious affairs directorate, Diyanet, which oversees more than 80,000 Turkish mosques, has set up an inquiry into the imam's actions.

The investigation will determine whether Tuzer's choice of music and musical instruments is "un-Islamic". Moreover, Tuzer, who is employed by the Turkish state, will have to justify the commercial nature of his activities.

"The problem is that he didn't seek any permission from any of our officials, and he went ahead and recorded some video and audio clips. That's why we are conducting an investigation," Abdul Kadir Ozkan from Diyanet's press office told Al Jazeera, adding he would not provide any further details until the probe concludes in the coming weeks.

Media storm

FiRock's first single, " Mevlaya Gel (Come to God)", from the band's debut album, "Time of Change", has had more than 30,000 hits on YouTube. It has also fuelled a fierce debate on traditional and social media: How could a man with such important religious responsibilities indulge in rock music?

The clean-shaven, stylishly-dressed Tuzer, who sports a smartphone and is active on Twitter and Facebook, calls his music "a meeting of your soul with God".

"We are bringing people closer to God," Tuzer says, sipping Turkish tea in his garden. His father and grandfather were also imams in Kas, and Tuzer took up his own religious responsibilities at the age of 19. "The image of Islam in the world is suffering. We need to remember that one of the main tenets of Islam is tolerance; it is to accept every human being as he or she is."

If the state strips him of his right to play music, Tuzer says, he will fight on. "I will call my lawyer and we will take the case to court. I will prove there that what I am doing is right," he says.

Beyond the Diyanet investigation, Tuzer has faced additional opposition online, including, he says, threats from people in Mardin, a conservative region of southeastern Turkey. They have invited him to sing there, warning of dire consequences should he accept.

"They want to tell me that I won't survive if I did that," Tuzer says. "Of course, it scared me."

Split society

Andrew Finkel, an Istanbul-based analyst and author of the book "Turkey: what everyone needs to know", said Tuzer has sparked controversy because his rock music presents a challenge to religious orthodoxy from within Islam itself.

"What you have in Turkey, which makes this controversial, is a state-funded religious establishment, the department for religious affairs, which is essentially an element of political control over religion," Finkel said. "It's an attempt by the state to define what is legitimate and not legitimate, what is orthodox and what is heterodox."

Modern Turkish society is split between religious and secular forces, Finkel added – those who believe religion has a place in public life, and those who take the opposite stance.

For the past decade, Turkey has been governed by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AKP (Justice and Development Party), a centre-right party that downplays its Islamist reputation and claims to be merely morally and socially conservative. But critics accuse Erdogan of imposing Muslim values on the population, describing his policies as a blow to the secular nation founded by Kemal Ataturk 90 years ago. Erdogan recently condemned the concept of unmarried male and female university students living together in private housing, prompting opposition parties to lash out, saying any such ban would amount to a constitutional violation.

In the current sociopolitical climate, Finkel said, the key issues for the future include whether Turkey will become a society that tolerates complexity and diversity, or one that attempts to impose conformity.

"My own optimistic feeling is that this is a big enough, diverse enough… unruly enough country [that it is] unlikely to abide by orthodoxy for very long," he added.

‘True leader'

Back in Pinarbasi, Tuzer admits this is not the first controversy he had faced over the years. He whips out his mobile phone and plays a Turkish television news clip from 1999, the year he got married. The clip shows Tuzer and his wife, Oana Mara, on their wedding day, when he became the first imam under Diyanet to marry outside of his faith (his wife was a Christian from Romania).

Mara, now 37 and well-integrated into Turkish society, says it was not easy in the beginning.

"It's natural how people reacted. They expected us to marry within our own religions," she says. "It was hard to convince my parents. They had been to Turkey previously and had seen some women who were covered. They thought that being married to an imam would mean that I would have to cover myself up too." Yet Mara still does not wear a hijab, despite converting to Islam three years into their marriage of her own free will.

FiRock's lead guitarist, 53-year-old Dogan Sakin, who sports tattoos all over his hands, refers to Tuzer as "a true leader" and says he would never have undertaken the project with anyone else. On his rooftop terrace in the centre of Kas, Sakin puffs on a cigarette.

"We human beings are the most beautiful thing that God created," he muses, "and we should respect and love everyone alike… Other imams have a lot to learn from Ahmet."

At 5 am on an April morning this year, 30 young women emerged in khaki flak jackets from a dormitory in Syria’s north-eastern plains. Under the still-dark sky, they gathered on the gravelly ground at the front of a temporary facility where they were camped, filing into neat rows, one behind the other, an arm’s length apart. Once they were in position, they sharply saluted their commander, a lean, stern woman about twice the recruits’ age.

Then, as the sun peeped over the horizon, the armed unit went through their morning drills. They exercised for an hour or so, jogging from end to end on a roughly 100-metre-long concrete street that led out of the compound, breaking into occasional sprints, and doing push-ups, stretches and lunges. One of the camp members, 21-year-old Rokan Abrahim, took on the role of instructor for the day and performed the exercises alongside them, barking orders to coordinate the routine. When they had finished, they broke off into twos and threes and walked back towards the residential quarters, chatting and laughing with each other.

It was the start of another day at this all-women Kurdish rebel training camp in north-east Syria.Women from different parts of Syria’s Kurdish regions had enrolled in a 15-day-long physical education and combat program designed to prepare them for the frontlines. The 30 soldiers of the camp were women between the ages of 19 and 25, and were part of the only all-women armed unit in Syria, known as the Women’s Protection Unit, or the YPJ. Once the fortnight of lectures, assault courses, rifle practice and combat training concluded, the women were to disperse to various battlefronts and checkpoints across the north-east of the country.

The YPJ is part of the larger People’s Protection Unit (YPG)—the official armed wing of the Kurdish Supreme Committee, a governing organisation of Syrian Kurdistan—which comprises male and female fighters. In a country that is being ripped apart by war, the YPG aims to represent the rights of minority ethnic Kurds, who are not the main players in the clashes between Syrian government and Arab rebels. The YPJ has the same aim, but emphasises women’s rights. Since the beginning of the war, in March 2011, the YPG and YPJ, along with other Kurdish militia, have been taking over security of regions in north-eastern Syria heavily populated by Kurds, including the important cities of Al Malikiyah (Derik in Kurdish), Al Qamishli (Qamishlo) and Ras al Ain (Sere Kaniye). The exact strength of the combined YPG is hard to estimate—figures range from 1,500 to 15,000 depending on whom you ask.

For nearly a century, the history of Kurds in Syria has been marked by discrimination. Over the years, according to Human Rights Watch reports, the Syrian government has systematically repressed Kurds, through measures such as the revocation of citizenship, bans on language and cultural expression, and the harassment and arrest of activists. Since the 1960s, this mistreatment has increased under the regimes of Hafez al-Assad, and then his son, Bashar al-Assad. “In every country, people can speak their mother tongue, but [Bashar] Assad prohibited us from speaking our language,” Abrahim said. “We weren’t given the rights of civilians in this country. He always made us feel that we are not people of this country.”

In late 2010 and early 2011, violent anti-government protests in Tunisia were followed by similar movements in Egypt, Libya, Yemen and other West Asian and North African countries. April 2011 saw the outbreak of clashes in Syria, between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, and rebels aiming to oust him. Syrian Kurds were uncertain of which path to follow: a strong anti-regime sentiment was prevalent among them, but people feared that they would face harsh reprisals if they chose to protest. Since then, Kurdish participation in the Syrian uprising has been varied and complex across regions. Youth committees in some cities such as Amouda took the lead and fearlessly organised anti-regime demonstrations. In other places, like Al Qamishli, where older politicians were in charge, and had a hold over the population, Kurds remained quiet. Among the issues that Kurds have agitated for since 2011 is the establishment of an autonomous West Kurdistan comprising the Kurdish-speaking north-eastern regions of the country.

During the early days of the uprising, the Syrian government offered citizenship to thousands of Kurds in Al Hasaka province. Many sceptics saw this move as a way to appease the Kurds, and prevent them from turning against the regime. Soon after, Kurdish rebels ousted Syrian forces from their territories, although some observers claimed that Assad had ordered his troops to retreat as part of a tactical move to maintain stability in the region. The Kurds have adopted an official stance of being a “third front” in the Syrian civil war, neither siding with the opposition rebels, nor supporting the Assad regime. The women fighters of the YPJ have stuck to this line and have been involved in fighting Arab and Islamist rebels as well as government troops.

“We are living in difficult times in Syria right now,” said Abrahim, who joined the militia when her school shut down because of the war. “We should protect ourselves. When I join the academy here in Syria, I am fulfilling my responsibility of protecting our region and our rights.” She emphasised that the YPJ’s main aim was not an offensive one. “We are carrying weapons, not to kill anybody, but to protect ourselves,” she said. “We are against violence in any area, in any region. But we are carrying the weapons to protect our nation and our people.”

At the camp, after the morning drill, the women fighters gathered for a standing breakfast of bread, eggs and tea. At the table, they giggled and gossiped. There was only a fleeting sense of being in a warzone. Soon after the meal, however, they gathered to sing in praise of their colleagues who died in recent battles. Suzdar Kholchar, a 24-year-old, sat sombre in a corner. “Two of my friends were killed in the battle in Sere Kaniye,” she said, referring to clashes between Kurdish rebels and Islamic forces in the town, which borders Turkey, in late 2012. Soon, her mood became defiant. “My friends who died in the war, they paid with their blood as a price for our freedom,” she said. “I am also ready to pay this high price, my blood, for a free West Kurdistan.”

Suzdar then rushed to attend a class along with the rest of the women. Over the next hour, the lecturer, a woman around the same age as the soldiers, spoke to them about gender equality and women’s empowerment. She invoked the ideology and teachings of Abdullah Öcalan, the founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey—considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union—the ranks of which have always prominently included women. (Öcalan is currently in a Turkish prison on charges of terrorism.) The talk included an analysis of the imposition of the hijab on women in Islam, a condemnation of the growing number of honour killings in Kurdish Syria and the unequal treatment meted out to women in society.

After the class, the women proceeded outdoors for their next training session, in weapon use. “When a woman takes a weapon to protect herself and her region, it’s a revolution in itself,” Abrahim said. “Not all women can carry weapons. Only a strong woman can carry weapons. Only she can protect herself and her people.” She fetched her AK-47 and joined the group in the fields surrounding the camp building. The scene was surreal—some two dozen young women running across seemingly serene fields of yellow rapeseed flowers, with guns raised over their heads.

They were then ordered to move to another field, where they practised running over hurdles. Some of the women were showing signs of exhaustion, but their commander pressed them on. Then, one by one they loaded their guns and practised firing into gunny bags that were placed as targets in the fields.

At the end of the long day, they stood in a semi-circle, holding each other by the waist. They sang and danced to the beats of the YPJ anthem. Almost like a war cry, the loudspeaker blared, “Long live the YPJ!” The fighters performed a traditional Kurdish group folk dance, hooting and screaming at regular intervals, almost as if in a trance.

“I’d like to stay and fight with the YPJ, but not forever,” Abrahim said just before we departed. “After the war is over, I’d like to become a lawyer.”

In July of this year, the UN reported that more than 100,000 people had died in the Syrian civil war, while the estimate for the total number of refugees, within the country and abroad, stood at a staggering seven million, or nearly one-third of the entire population. In July and August, fierce clashes broke out between the Kurdish armed forces and Al Qaeda-linked rebels in the north-east, even as reports of chemical weapon use in Damascus shocked the international community. In the first week of September, we received some news from our contact person in the region, a young woman who works closely with the YPJ, though not in a military capacity. “All the girls from the camp are being deployed along the front lines all over the region,” she said. “They are all fighting. The military situation has improved. The YPG and YPJ are gaining control over more and more areas that used to be under Islamist control. Last month during the fighting, many people were afraid, but now there is more stability.”

Source: Deustche WelleMuch has changed for the Kurds, Syria's biggest ethnic minority, since the start of the revolution. Oppressed under President Assad, they're now more confident than ever - politically, militarily, and culturally.

It's a mild Thursday evening in Al-Malikiyah, a predominantly Kurdish town on the Syrian border with both Turkey and Iraq. Several hundred people have come to the local cultural center - and politics is on the agenda.

Political awakening

Asya Muhammed Abdullah is standing at the speaker's desk, full of energy as she speaks. She is vice-chairwoman of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian arm of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party. Her eyes glow as she calls on the spectators to fight for their rights.

Before the Syrian revolution such meetings were unthinkable. "For 30 years we Syrian Kurds have been fighting for our rights," Abdullah says. "That's why so many of our friends have been arrested and tortured to death by the regime." The ruling Baath Party denied the Kurds all basic rights. In the 1960s, 20 percent of the two million Kurds in Syria had their citizenship revoked.

Power shift

But the revolution has changed all that. At the start of the revolt, Assad gave the stateless Kurds their citizenship back, in order to head off uprisings in the Kurdish regions of the country too. For tactical reasons, a section of the Syrian army was withdrawn from Kurdish areas and redeployed elsewhere.

"The revolution brought a change. We didn't start from scratch, we were ready for a solution to the Kurdish question," says Abdullah. So units of the Kurdish Popular Protection Units, the YPG, the military arm of the PYD, brought large areas of the Kurdish region under control, with the help of the PKK.

"We believe in a democratic model for the whole of Syria," says Abdullah. "Democracy is the political solution to Syria's problems. We don't want to divide Syria; we believe we can live together as brothers in a democratic Syria."

In the meantime, the PKK is negotiating with the Turkish government on the other side of the border, and that will have a decisive influence on what happens in the Kurdish areas of Syria; at least militarily and economically, the Kurds could profit from a partial opening of the border.

Military presence

The YPG has set up checkpoints along the main road of Qamishli, the unofficial capital of the Kurdish regions. Armed young men and women inspect each and every vehicle that goes by. The barricades on the road are mainly painted red, yellow, and green, the Kurdish colors. Only in the center of town and in some districts are there still government soldiers to be seen on patrol. The area is mainly under the control of the YPG, but there are still Arab villages around where either rebel forces or government forces are in charge.

The situation is even more complicated in the border town of Ras al-Ayn, or Sere Kaniye as it is known in Kurdish. Government soldiers, rebel soldiers, YPG, and the Islamist Al-Nusra Front are all here. But YPG commander Rezan Ibrahim is calm. "We are against blood-letting and military action in Syria, but the current situation forces us to take up arms," he said. "If a government gives the Kurds all their rights in the future, then we will participate and support it." Then he adds: "But if they deny us our rights, we will use our weapons to fight for them."

Cultural renewal

Under President Bashar al-Assad, the Kurds were forbidden to speak their language or to publicly celebrate Nowruz, their New Year's Day. But the growth in political and military power has caused a renaissance of Kurdish culture.

Qamishli's "Mohammad-Shekho" culture and music center has now existed for a year and a half. Every evening, dozens of young people arrive here to learn Kurdish dancing and singing. Young singer Hussain Khate comes twice a week. He describes how dramatically the situation has changed. "Before the revolution the situation was terrible," he says. "We had to practice in secret at home, which was not only forbidden but dangerous. Things have gotten better now. We can practice together here in the center. It feels good. It is wonderful for us to be able to speak and sing in our language."

Civilians suffer

But not everything is so positive - the war is having an impact. Power outages are widespread. Garbage is piled on the streets. The prices of staple foods have risen considerably in the past two years. Medical attention is hard to come by, as most doctors have left the country. The schools are largely kept closed for security reasons. On top of that, a mosaic of different political groups makes the situation for the civilians even more difficult. The security situation is complex and often hard to comprehend.

In the last few months there have been several government air strikes on Kurdish regions. Nasrin Hamid, 26-year-old mother of three, lost her house in Sere Kaniye in one of them. "Three of my neighbors were killed, and two cousins who fight with YPG were injured," she says. "Thank God no-one was hit in my immediate family. We're starving, there's no water or electricity. Everything is broken. We have no money to buy anything at the market."

Nasrin is pessimistic about the future. Despite all the positive developments for the Kurds, she's not prepared to admit to any hope which might turn out to be false, for fear of disappointment.

We also produced a video reportage on the topic for Journal, Deustche Welle. Follow this link to watch the video: http://www.dw.de/syrische-kurden-die-dritte-kriegspartei/av-16834913.

Kurds, an ethnic minority in Syria, suffered oppression under the “Arabization” policy of the Assad regime. But the Syrian revolution has brought along change. With a strong political and military presence in northeast Syria, Kurds are putting their past behind and working towards a better future. They have transformed from being underdogs to the ones in power. This newfound influence is not just political or military, but also cultural, and Kurdish culture is experiencing a sort of revival. Young Syrians, like Sameer Shaiyer, 28, are doing their bit to spread the word about Kurdish art forms. And what makes Samir’s job challenging is that he’s Arab.

Listen to the report by Gayatri Parameswaran and Felix Gaedtke report from Qamishlo, Syria:

Fifty-five year-old Ayda Sergsyan sang out a series of verses in praise of a traditional Armenian dish, pumpkin stuffed with rice, apple, apricot, almonds and other nuts - on a recent afternoon, as she prepared lunch for her family of six. The song pays tribute to the dish for its aroma and taste, but also highlights the importance of cuisine in Armenia's culture.

Pride in national cuisine is common across the Caucasian countries of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. But "gastronationalism" has caused quite a stir among these neighbours, who vie for the recognition of certain dishes as their own. The issue is increasing tensions between nations that share a troubled past.

That sunny afternoon, Sergsyan prepared her favourite dish, tolma, in her modest kitchen in Areni, a village in southern Armenia. She meticulously filled some vine leaves with rice and beef. "I'm preparing two kinds of tolma today - vegetarian and a meat variant," she said, as her grandchildren eagerly awaited their meal.

Meanwhile, a pot of harissa - chicken and wheat stew, boiled on the gas stove. "Harissa is our national dish. We all love it. It takes a lot of time for preparation, so we began making it last night," she said. An hour later, as lunch was served, the Sergsyan family gathered around their large dining table and cheered with their homemade wine to the glory of Armenian cuisine.

Bone of contention

But what the Sergsyans, and thousands of other Armenians, proudly consider to be their national food is a bone of contention in the surrounding region.

For instance, neighbouring Azerbaijan claims tolma to be integral to Azeri cuisine. Last year, Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev declared it to be their national dish.

The National Cuisine Centre of Azerbaijan has gone further, accusing Armenia of "plagiarising" its national food.

Tahir Amiraslanov, who heads the organisation, said: "Armenians claim Azerbaijani and other dishes as their own... We've accused Armenia many times of plagiarising Azeri dishes. We tried to have a scientific argument to determine [the food's] origin, but they aren't willing to cooperate."

The fight doesn't stop there. Earlier this year, Azerbaijan's Ministry of National Security produced a documentary film called "Three Points" about the issue. The movie emphasises the importance of food in the conflict between the two countries, which went to war in the late 1980s and early 1990s over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict left more than 30,000 dead and a million displaced from both sides. In 1994 a ceasefire was declared, but both sides accuse each other of violating the peace accord.

Armenia has refuted the allegations of food plagiarism. As a show of defiance, the Preservation and Development of Armenian Culinary Traditions, an organisation that works to preserve Armenian cuisine, set up an annual tolma festival in which chefs from across the country are invited to participate in a tolma-making competition.

Sedrak Mamulyan, a celebrity chef, culinary expert and organiser of the festival, said: "If they [other countries] want to make these dishes, let them. We don't have a problem, but why do they claim it as their own? We don't do that - we don't claim other countries' dishes as our own."

The organisation has also been contesting UNESCO's decision to add keshkek - a dish made of chicken and wheat stew - to its list of Turkey's intangible cultural heritage. According to Mamulyan, the dish called harissa in Armenia has been proven to be theirs. "The word 'keshkek' has Armenian roots. 'Kashi' means 'to pull' and 'ka' means 'to take out'. Once harissa is cooked you take it out of the oven. Ask the representatives of other nations about this dish and see if they can give you a similar explanation."

Meanwhile, Armenians have been questioning claims by neighbouring Georgia that khash, a soup made from cow feet, is its own.

Michaela DeSoucey, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, has researched gastronationalism and argues that such disputes are not just about nationalism. "It is much more than that ... What often seems to be nationalism and pride is more of a struggle for markets. Jobs and livelihoods among the producers of the ingredients can be influenced by these disputes."

Arguments over which country "owns" a type of food are not intended to end in agreement, Desoucey believes. "[The disputes] help to raise awareness, but also help grow the markets by making people want to try the products," she explained.
Breaking bread together

And gastronationalism is by no means limited to the Caucasus region. DeSoucey cites disputes over the origin of feta cheese between Greece, France and Denmark, and a feud over who "invented" hummus between Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. "By creating symbolic boundaries, food is being used to keep people apart," she said.

At the same time, though, food and peacemaking have been connected historically, noted DeSoucey: "The main way alliances were brokered, how conflicts were resolved, was over food and feasting together."

The disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh illustrates how there may be some room for reconciliation. Despite decades of conflict with Azerbaijan, the people of the region reportedly love Azeri food. Although there isn't any direct contact between the two sides, Karabakhis have found a way around closed borders. The Azeri tea they are so fond of reaches them through relatives living in Russia. Azeris in Baku procure their bottles of Armenian cognac in a similar fashion.

In 2007, the Helsinki Initiative, an NGO that works towards promoting peace in the conflict-ridden region, organised a unique event called "Azeri Kitchen Day" in Nagorno-Karabakh's main city, Stepanakert, in which Azeri dishes were cooked and served.

Karen Ohanjanyan, who heads the Helsinki Initiative, stressed the need for such exchanges. "It is very difficult to establish peace on the grassroots level," she said.

"In order to achieve real change you have to start from the grassroots. You have to organise such things as the Azeri Kitchen Day and other events, in order to move towards peace."

Small Caucasus country is the first in the world to make chess mandatory in schools, aiming to build a better society.

Gayatri Parameswaran and Felix Gaedtke

Yerevan, Armenia - Little Susie Hunanyan attended her favourite class in school last week, and it wasn't drawing, crafts or sport. The seven-year-old sat studiously through an hour of chess lessons.

In Armenia, learning to play the grand game of strategy in school is mandatory for children - the only country in the world that makes chess compulsory - and the initiative has paid dividends. Armenia, a Caucasus country with a population of just three million, is a chess powerhouse.

Susie listened attentively as her teacher explained chess moves on a large board in front of the class at the Yeghishe Charents Basic School in the capital, Yerevan.

"I like chess lessons a lot. They always pass by smoothly," she said, setting up pieces sequentially on her board.

Armenia has produced more than 30 grandmasters and won the team chess Olympiads in 2006, 2008 and 2012. Armenian champion Levon Aronian is currently the third-best player in the world, according to the World Chess Federation rankings.

In 2011, Armenia made chess compulsory for second, third and fourth-graders. That's why Susie and her classmates have two hours of chess every week in school.

"My grandpa taught me how to play chess. But now that I learn chess in school, I am better at it than he is," Susie said, adding when she grows up, she'd like to become a chess champion like her idol, Levon Aronian.

For an hour, the students playfully engaged in one-on-one matches against each other.

"Chess is having a good influence on their performance in other subjects too. The kids are learning how to think, it's making them more confident," said teacher Rosanna Putanyan, watching her pupils play from the periphery.

Education project

The chess initiative is not only meant to scout young talent but also build a better society. Armen Ashotyan, Armenia's education minister, told Al Jazeera the project is aimed at fostering creative thinking.

"Chess develops various skills - leadership capacities, decision-making, strategic planning, logical thinking and responsibility," Ashotyan said. "We are building these traits in our youngsters. The future of the world depends on such creative leaders who have the capacity to make the right decisions, as well as the character to take responsibility for wrong decisions."

More than $3m has been spent on the project so far to supply chess equipment and learning aids in all Armenian schools, Ashotyan added. The majority of the budget was allocated to train chess players to become good teachers. In coming years, spending on chess is expected to rise, he said.The initiative is also attracting attention from other countries. Later this year, chess will be integrated into the national curriculum of Hungary's elementary schools. Countries such as Moldova, Ukraine and Spain are showing interest in running similar projects.

In Britain, the United States, Switzerland, India, Russia and Cuba schools have long offered chess as a subject, though no nationwide legislation making it compulsory exists.

Developing mental capacities

A team of Armenian psychologists headed by Ruben Aghuzumstyan has been researching the impact of chess on young minds since last year.

Aghuzumstyan said preliminary results show that children who play chess score better in certain personality traits such as individuality, creative thinking, reflexes and comparative analysis.

"During the first few years of school, children are equipped to learn with games. So for kids who are seven, eight and nine, learning is better through games, and chess is an optimised game which develops a lot of areas of the brain," Aghuzumstyan said.

The psychologist, who is also a member of the Armenian Chess Federation, said chess improves social skills as well as mental strength.

Chess became more popular in the former Soviet republic in the 1960s. Tigran Petrosian, a former world champion who won many accolades for the Soviet Union, became a household name in the 1970s. Ever since, chess has become a staple sport of the country.

On sunny days, parks in Yerevan are filled with chess enthusiasts capturing pawns and checkmating kings.

Aghuzumustyan explained why chess is so popular in Armenia, a nation with a troubled past. "We have a tough history," he said, referring to the mass killings carried out by the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

"Armenians have always been used to solving problems, because we always had problems. For us it often wasn't a question of living well or not, but a question of living or not. And chess is about solving problems on a board. It's not a coincidence that we, as a country, are so good at chess," Aghuzumustyan said.

Grooming grandmasters

In one of Yerevan's southern suburbs, an extravagant building complex hosts the Chess Academy of Armenia. On a recent rainy afternoon, dozens of young chess players filed into small training rooms to get advanced lessons. The chess players, some as young as four, are being groomed for a professional career, free of cost thanks to the government.

Top-ranked chess players in Armenia win respect and adulation. Massive billboards with photos of the winning Olympiad team of 2012 on Yerevan's streets indicate their star status.

And the government provides top players with handsome salaries and perks: Tigran Petrosian, who was part of the gold-winning 2012 team and shares the same name as the country's champion during the 1970s, drives a swanky Mercedes S-550.

"We don't have to worry about money. That's a good thing. Although we have corporate sponsors for some events, it's mainly the state that supports and helps us out," said Petrosian as he drank juice in a Yerevan café.

The 29-year-old grandmaster said being a chess player in Armenia is a big deal. "I get greeted on the streets when I walk. People chase me home. And I get a lot of fan mail. I am happy to be a chess player in this country."

Yerevan Chess House, located in the heart of Armenia's capital, bears testimony to the country's chess mania. Every day dozens of chess players, young and old, spend hours here battling it out on their boards. Magazines, newspapers, books and DVDs about chess are on sale at the chess house's newsstand.

"Chess 64" is a popular TV show hosted by Gagik Hovhannisian that has been running since 1972. Earlier this year, the government introduced another programme, "Chess World", hosted by 22-year-old Aghasi Inants, to attract youngsters to the sport.

On a recent afternoon at the Chess House, Inants said the aim of the series is to popularise chess further. "In one show, we had chess lessons for youngsters, chess news, we also have celebrity interviews, as well as a section on chess history," he said.

"One day a mother called me and said that her daughter wasn't willing to do her chess homework until she saw my show … The kid was sure that it would be easier for her to solve her chess homework after she had watched my show," the host recounted proudly.

But not all Armenians are mad about chess. Inants' friend David Khachatryan doesn't play and isn't fond of the game either.

"I will be very happy the day when football here becomes as important as chess," Khachatryan told Al Jazeera. "It would be great to have a football team as good as our chess team."

Thousands of Punjabi farmers have bought land in distant Georgia lured by cheap prices, angering some locals.

Felix Gaedtke and Gayatri Parameswaran

Samgori, Georgia - Larisa Maisuradze was astonished to see the sudden proliferation of foreigners driving farm machinery near her sleepy village, about 25 kilometres south of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi.

Her home is sandwiched between the lone street that runs through the small village of Samgori on one side, and a vast tract of underutilised farmland on the other.

"I didn't know what was going on, I was so surprised," Maisuradze recounted on a recent afternoon. "There were all these Indian farmers driving tractors here."

Maisuradze said the unusual scene from that day months ago are etched in her memory, as she never imagined she'd have so many neighbours from a land so far away.

The Indians Maisuradze witnessed that day were the first wave of many who have come to Georgia to farm land in the Caucasus region in recent months.

The government is seeking to bolster domestic agricultural production to help Georgia become more food self-sufficient. Most Georgians farm small plots of land for sustenance only, not enough for commercial production.

Agricultural production has plummeted from 12.8 percent of the country's GDP in 2006 to just 8.3 percent at present.

Georgia has stepped up the immigration of people with agricultural know-how and farmland sales to foreigners, as the country's abundant and agriculturally potent conditions have not been properly utilised by local farmers.

Many Georgians, however, view the influx of foreign farmers as an "invasion". Estimates suggest thousands of Indian farmers - mostly from the northern state of Punjab - have immigrated since 2012.

Maisuradze admits it was difficult to develop relationships with the new arrivals, but it didn't take her long to realise they were "nice people".

"There's no drinking water in the fields, so they always come here to drink water. I give them water and in return they always bring me some vegetables from the farm - tomatoes or potatoes or something else. They are nice people, very hardworking and calm," said Maisuradze.

One of the reasons Palhan chose Georgia is because land here is so inexpensive.

"I can buy a hectare of land for US$1,000-$1,500. I can't imagine finding something that cheap in Punjab," the bearded farmer said. "You can't compare the prices. I sold one hectare of my land in Punjab and with that money I could buy 200 hectares [495 acres] of land in Georgia."

Palhan grows wheat, potatoes, garlic, onion and a variety of other crops. The 42-year-old recently walked through a fresh morning mist that hung over his fields, and bent down to grab a handful of dirt.

"Feel the texture of the soil, it's great. It's very suitable for the crops we'd like to grow. It's not very different from the soil we have back home," he said.

Stroking his turban he added jokingly: "I am a true Punjabi at heart. We have this inherent hunger for buying more and more land. There's not one Punjabi who is satisfied with the land he owns."

Though he is trying to adapt to Georgian life, Palhan faces some hurdles. The culture and language are "different", and the food is "not spicy".

"Of course, I miss my family and my friends but most of all makki di roti aur sarso da saag [corn bread and mustard spiced curry]," he said longingly.

Palhan found out about agricultural investment opportunities in Georgia through a newspaper advertisement by an immigration agency.

Posters welcoming immigrants to Georgia are stuck on the walls of Crown Immigration Consultancy Services office on the top floor of a shopping mall in a Tbilisi suburb.

The agency has facilitated the migration of about 2,000 farmers since last year, according to Dharamjit Singh Saini, executive director of the firm, who also hails from Punjab.

Punjabi farmers find Georgia attractive because of the lack of red tape, said Saini. "Everything is transparent … and there's no corruption here - unlike India. If all goes well, there will be more [Indians] to come."

The agency is also planning to open a Georgian-Russian-language school in Jalandhar in Punjab state to prepare farmers before they head to their new home.

Unhappy Georgians

Not everyone is content with recent developments. Georgian farmers with small and medium-sized farms complain while the government facilitates foreign investment in agriculture, it doesn't encourage local farmers.

Raul Babunashvili is the founder of the Georgian Farmers' Union. On a weekday the union's office in Tbilisi is buzzing with activity. Sacks of seed are brought in to the storage hall, and farming equipment is briskly bought and sold.

Babunashvili, 71, sits in a quiet office far from all the distraction. "In the past, the government neglected agriculture. It wasn't a priority for them. That made the farmers so broke that they have no choice but to sell their lands at a pittance to foreigners - and here let me specifically mention the Indian farmers."

The union founder admitted the inadequacies of local agriculturalists, but said the government should focus on Georgians instead of foreigners to boost food production.

"Georgian farmers lack the know-how and skills. We don't have the resources to invest in building infrastructure. That's why Georgian farmers are lagging behind, while Indians come and literally grab their land for the cheapest prices."

Babunashvili said he doesn't have any statistics on how much land Indian farmers own in Georgia, but he wants immediate government action to halt foreigners from buying up prime agricultural areas.

"We must stop this invasion of land-buyers from India. I call it invasion because they are coming in massive numbers," said Babunashvili.

Paying heed to 'black sheep'

In an interview, Agriculture Minister David Kirvalidze was asked whether the government was ignoring the needs of Georgian farmers.

Kirvalidze said they were not made a priority by past governments, but added his administration was paying attention to the "black sheep in the family" - Georgia's agriculture sector - after it came to power in October 2012.

"We are trying to bring the rural Georgian population back to life, back to business. We are making huge investments, you will see the results in the coming months. I ask you to return after seven-eight months," Kirvalidze said.

The government under Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili has increased funding for agriculture by more than 60 percent from the previous budget, he noted. And a fund worth about US$600m was also created in January to provide credit for small farmers.

Georgia imports 80 percent of its packaged food products, a problem that negatively affects the economy. "It's nonsense, real nonsense," Kirvalidze said. "Georgian farmers have very good natural resources: soil, water and climate."

Although Kirvalidze stressed improving conditions for Georgian farmers, he doesn't shun foreigners. "Any kind of investment, foreign, local or domestic - we welcome all. Every single investor who is looking to build up long-term relationships with us is welcome," he said.

Ranjot Singh - who owns 150 hectares of farmland land in Georgia - saw yet another business opportunity with the wave of Punjabi immigrants.

"We are running an inexpensive hotel and canteen for the new arrivals. When they arrive, they can come here and feel at home. They can speak Punjabi and eat Punjabi food and get to know other Punjabis in Tbilisi," Singh said.

But for Singh, Georgia doesn't feel like home. "Georgians are very nice people. But we are very different from them. The culture is different, even the religion is different. But there's a business opportunity here."

Nat Purwa, a small village in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is about a two-hour drive from the provincial capital, Lucknow. In the mornings dozens of young children wearing tattered clothes trot along its dusty streets. It is hard not to notice their big, round, undernourished bellies. The children disappear into the fields, chasing away stray cattle.

Like most other villages around here, Nat Purwa suffers from abject poverty. But one element makes the village stand out from others in the area: Here, prostitution is a hereditary occupation, passed on from one generation of women to the next.

When Chandralekha turned 15, she joined the trade like the rest of the village girls. "My grandma said: 'The whole village is involved in prostitution. What difference does it make if you become one?' My grandmother is the one who got me involved," she told Al Jazeera.

Wrinkles criss-cross the 50-year-old's face as she recounts her past. "I always felt bad. With the first man, then the second, fourth, fifth, sixth. Thousands of men come to one woman. I'd say a woman starts feeling bad since the beginning, but there's a weakness. There's a hungry stomach to feed and there is resignation."

Chandralekha gave up prostitution owing to intolerable abuse. "I realised there's no respect," she said. "A whore is a whore."

Chandralekha and thousands of other women from Nat Purwa belong to the Nat community. The Nats have led a marginalised existence for decades. Before prostitution became the norm, Nats were historically performers, and some still carry on this tradition.

In 1871, the Criminal Tribes Act was passed under British rule, which classified certain tribes as engaging in "criminal activities". The Nats were one of the tribes targeted by this law.

Madhu Kishwar, the editor of Manushi , a journal and forum for women's rights, explained. "They [Nats and other 'criminal tribes'] used to be dancers, acrobats, jugglers and magicians," she said.

"During the colonial period, the British outlawed their activities. They got beaten up, arrested, locked up and brutalisation continued. This dried up their traditional source of livelihood, and women had no choice. They ended up in prostitution - what [else] will they do?"

Kishwar said that, more than six decades after independence, the legal framework in India still views the marginalised community through a colonial prism.

"I am taking their case to the Supreme Court," she told Al Jazeera. "It's a long process but I am not giving up." She added that there needed to be a major shift in "the colonial mindset" among all people in India in order to bring about real change on the ground.

A pan-India phenomenon?

Nat Purwa is not unique: academic Dr Anuja Agrawal , who has conducted research on the subject, said it's difficult to estimate the exact number of such "prostitute villages" in India.

"They are spread across [the Indian states of] Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan," she said. "And like Nats, for other communities such as Bedias, Faasi and Banjar. Prostitution has emerged as a strategy of survival among several such communities."

Agrawal says all these communities are inter-linked: "They share a distinct past. They were all nomadic tribes who settled with their communities in small villages."
In her book Migrant Women and Work, Agrawal wrote about the women of the Bedia community and their "proclivity" towards prostitution. There is a "family dimension" to the trade, she said. The men are also involved, making sex work an important aspect of the family economy.

This phenomenon isn't restricted to the northern and central plains of India. In south of the country, the Devadasi tradition has ensured that sex work remains the primary occupation among women from certain communities.

In the pre-colonial era, Devadasis were often temple dancers who were "married" to temple deities. Under British rule, temple dancing came to be classified as a criminal act, and the women were forced instead to sell their bodies for an income. Sex work then became a "tradition" among these communities, and today it has attained a certain level of social and cultural sanction.

Over the years, women from these communities have migrated to urban centres within India such as Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and even, reportedly, internationally to cities such as Dubai. "Even if you go to the brothels and red-light areas in these big cities, you'll find women from these communities," said Agrawal.

One study has estimated that as many as one percent of the entire adult female population in India may be involved in the sex trade. The Indian government has taken various measures to rehabilitate these women and protect their children. Last October, the Delhi government laid out a proposal to converge several such measures under an umbrella scheme for sex workers.

"We have in fact just begun work with sex workers from marginalised communities," said Ratna Prabha, of the Ministry of Women and Child Development.

"In states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, we have begun doing a base-line survey. We are trying to find out what their needs are in terms of health, education, housing, and other economic factors. We are also trying to find out what their children need or what they will need in their old age. In all these states, we are working with the state government and reputed NGOs."

De-stigmatising

Back in Nat Purwa, the children have returned from playing in the fields. When asked what their names are, they only give their first names; many don't have surnames. Nat Purwa is known elsewhere as "a village of bastards".

For instance, Ram Babu, field researcher with a local NGO called ASHA Trust, said he faced stigma when he left to pursue higher studies. "They would ask us: 'Whose son are you? A prostitute's son? You must be a bastard then. Nobody knows who your father is. Nobody knows whose son you are.' These are the questions all of us face. I am sure everybody feels hurt by it."

Ram Babu, who, incidentally, was born "out of wedlock", said the only way to make villagers' past bearable is to work towards a better future. "At least 30 percent of the women in the village are still sex workers," he told Al Jazeera. "If you want to see progress, you should be able to offer them an alternative way of earning their livelihood. If they are given a concrete option, then they will give it a serious thought.".

The NGO worker pointed out that lack of education is slowing the pace of progress. "It's a big problem here. When there's no education, it's easy to be misled," he said.

Nat Purwa's school doesn't look particularly impressive. In desolate surroundings, the building has one hall with a few benches and a blackboard. Rukmini [name changed], a 12-year-old student, said shyly: "I don't know what I'll become. I'll become whatever I have to become. I could work in an office or something."

She did not seem fiercely ambitious. But given Nat Purwa's bleak surroundings, dreaming was never going to be easy.

It’s seven in the morning and we are on a boat on the Brahmaputra River in Upper Assam.

There is regular morning traffic on the river.

Dozens of boats are ferrying people from the islands to the land for their day’s work.

Our boat is different from the others on the river.

It works as a clinic – an innovative medical unit that provides healthcare to people living on the river islands.

There’s a pharmacist, a lab technician, three nurses and medical supplies on board.

The doctor on duty today is Ritesh Kalwar.

“Today we are going to Amarpur area. There, we’ll visit a couple of villages to set up medical camps. We have to travel quite a lot today. We’ve already travelled an hour on the jeep. And now, there’s a three-hour boat journey and then we have to travel 8-10 kilometres on the tractor to reach one village,” says Dr. Ritesh, of the long day.
“We’ll set up a camp there and when that’s done travel on the tractor again to another village and then on the tractor back to the boat and back to land. That’s all,” he laughs.

These floating clinics are the brainchild of Sanjoy Hazarika who founded the NGO, the Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research, or C-NES.

“As I was travelling on the river, making a film on the river, I was travelling from Tibet right down to the Bay of Bengal and in Assam, we happened to stop by on an island called Majholi – it’s one of the larger river islands in the world. And there I heard the story of how a young woman, who was heavily pregnant, she died while waiting for transport to a hospital on the other side of the river,” recalls Sanjoy.

“And I said to myself that this is really unacceptable in this day and age that people have to die for lack of care. So, I thought, instead of people going for the service, why not take the service to them?”

The boat clinics first started in 2005.

Today they provide medical help to islanders in 13 districts across Assam with help from the government’s National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).

For people living on remote island villages, boat clinics are the only form of health care.

“In one situation, I remember, one boat clinic was coming back from a camp and on a small island, they saw a couple running, holding a child, waving to them. So they thought it was a problem, they pulled up and stopped the vessel. They found the child was having acute respiratory stress and was turning blue and they had the right medication, they had skills to deal with it,” she says.

“Within a few minutes, the child revived and survived. And they’ve gone back and seen the child. And so, they asked, ‘How is it that you knew we would come?’ So he says, ‘We know by your regularity. We know that if you go on such and such day, on the third day you will return. And that’s what we were hoping.’”

Back on board, the medical team has reached Napun village after four hours of travel.

More than a hundred patients – mainly women and children – have already gathered at a school classroom, where the medical camp will be set up.

The patients start lining up to see the doctor.

Nayanmuni Sukram, a heavily pregnant tribal woman, is one of them.

“There are no doctors in this area, so we have to come here for our check-ups. The last time I came, they did a urine test for me and said I am pregnant,” says Nayanmuni.

“Now I am here to find out when I am going to have the baby. When I had my first baby, it was very difficult. I was in labour for four days. I am scared what will happen this time around.

Nayanmuni’s fears are valid.

She has heard many stories of mothers dying while giving birth.

Assam has the highest maternal mortality rate in India – 390 out of every 100,000.

Nayanmuni’s is waiting for an antenatal check-up with Dr Kalwar.

He finds her haemoglobin levels low, prescribes her iron tablets and stresses that she should go to the hospital for the delivery.

But getting to the closest hospital involves several hours of walking and a boat or a tractor to get there.

Many women choose to give birth in the village with help from midwives instead.

Nayanmuni says it would best if the boat clinic arrived while she was in labor.

At the pharmacist, Nayanmuni collects her iron tablets and returns home to rest.

She’s expected to deliver her child any time next week.

Dr Kalwar has seen more than a 100 patients today, but they don’t always agree with his prognosis.

“The main challenge with the patients is that they are not willing to take medication. They have some myths. They still believe in quacks and say that they will only take the medicines we prescribe along with some traditional herbs,” he says.

“But our job is to try and be patient with them and make them aware of the benefits of medicine. We tell them, ‘Look, your haemoglobin levels are so low, it has to be at least this much. You have to take these pills to be healthy.’ Most of the challenges we face are due to their lack of awareness.

Due to the drop in water levels, the boats are finding it more and more difficult to reach the islands.

Murari Yadav is the captain of our boat today.

As he navigates the boat back, he tells us he has been sailing on the river since he was a teenager.

“I can remember from long ago, from the year 1988. Water in the river continues to drop and drop. The water in the river has never seen such depth since those days. Now the river is very wide,” says Murari.

“The water levels are going down every year. We used to be fearful of the current in the river in those days, but now, we just hope that it rains enough so we can plough our boats through.

Studies suggest the Brahmaputra is eating away five metres of land every year.

As water levels drop, this steady stream of healthcare is also under threat.

In downtown Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan, Sonam Dema - who requested her real name not be used - owns a small corner shop in a quiet alleyway. Packaged food, drinks, confectionaries and pastries are on display. On a busy afternoon, a Bhutanese man walks into the shop and orders cigarettes in a hushed tone. Dema looks around cautiously. She leans down to her handbag and pulls out a pack of 10 cigarettes. "One hundred ngultrum (about $1.87)," Dema says.

The transaction happens under the counter. The buyer slides the pack of cigarettes under his jacket and leaves in no time. "It’s illegal to sell cigarettes here. I don’t sell them to anyone I don’t know," Dema says after her customer leaves.

Bhutan, a small Himalayan nation often called the Land of the Thunder Dragon, is the only country in the world that completely bans the sale and production of tobacco and tobacco products. Under the law, any individual found selling tobacco can face imprisonment for a period of three to five years.

But the youngster confesses that she is only doing it for financial reasons. "Look at everything in the store. Cigarettes bring more profit than anything else. I have to pay rent for this place and if I stop selling cigarettes my profits will plummet," she says.

Tough laws

Bhutan, with a population of 700,000, has used an index called "Gross National Happiness" as a measure of progress. The government emphasises improving people’s happiness while relying on four pillars of development - good governance, natural environment, sustainable growth and cultural values.

The Himalayan nation has a long history of tobacco control. In 1729, it perhaps became the first country in the world to have any kind of tobacco regulation, when the supreme leader Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal passed a law against tobacco use.

In the 1990s, many of the 20 districts of Bhutan began autonomously declaring themselves smoke-free zones. By 2004, the national assembly of Bhutan (which was then a monarchy), banned the sale of tobacco throughout the country as well as smoking in public places, private offices and even recreation centres like bars and pubs. It was lauded for being the first country in the world to go entirely smoke-free.

However, the implementation of the ban remained weak. As a response, the government passed the Tobacco Control Act in 2010, under which smoking cigarettes or chewing tobacco became a non-bailable offence. Anybody in possession of tobacco could be imprisoned for a minimum of three years if the person is unable to produce a receipt declaring payment of import duties for the products.

Last year, more than 80 people were booked under the new law and nearly half of them were sent to prison. The first one to be imprisoned was Sonam Tshering, a Buddhist monk, who was caught with 180 grams of chewing tobacco worth 120 ngultrum (about $2.25).

This resulted in a public outcry, and a Facebook group was created called "Amend the Tobacco Control Act". The group had over 2,900 members, and was the first show of dissent in a country that adopted democracy in 2008 after 100 years of absolute monarchy.

Tashi Dorji, who participated in the online protest, says the law took away his individual right as a smoker. "Putting people behind bars for smoking or chewing tobacco is a violation of their rights. The other crimes that get a similar three-year sentence are human trafficking, abduction, rape, arson, robbery, impersonating a uniformed personnel, torture, and riot. What are we trying to say here?"

Under public pressure, the parliament amended the act and passed the Tobacco Control (Amendment) Act in January 2012. The amended Act has increased the permissible amounts of tobacco that can be imported for personal consumption. One can now import 300 cigarettes, 400 bidis, 50 cigars and 250 grams of other tobacco products. However, one has to produce receipts for import duties if caught with these products or face hefty fines.

Many displeased

On a bus from the border town of Phuntsholing to the capital Thimphu, Tsering Zam - who requested his name not be used - is nervous. She has purchased three packs of cigarettes without paying import duties.

At the check post, two Bhutanese police personnel enter the bus and check suspicious-looking luggage. Zam pretends to be asleep throughout the checking. If caught, she could end up paying a fine of up to 10,000 ngultrum ($187).

Once past the check post, she opens her eyes and breathes a sigh of relief at not being caught. "I can’t afford to pay the fine. And I don’t want to pay import duties either. Why can’t I smoke cigarettes at a normal price if I am not selling them to anyone else?" she asks angrily.

Zam isn’t the only one displeased. The amended act has many critics. Tshering Tobgay, leader of the opposition in the National Assembly, is vocal about his opposition to the original law as well as its amended version.

On his blog "Opposition Bhutan", the non-smoker says, "First, the amendment, like the existing Act, continues to allow people to legally import tobacco. Travellers, and those fortunate to live in bordering towns, can continue to legally import tobacco up to the 'permissible quantity'. The way I see it, if we’re going to allow some people to purchase and consume tobacco legally, we should allow other people to do so too."

The strict laws have given rise to a thriving black market. Most sellers get their supplies of cigarettes and chewing tobacco twice a week from a "dealer", who usually smuggles in the products across the border from India.

Good health

Sonam Tshering is a legal officer at the Bhutan Narcotics Control Agency (BNCA) which is responsible for implementing the amended Act. He defends the law: "It’s proven that consuming tobacco isn’t good for your health. We are making it more and more difficult for smokers to get hold of cigarettes. We are a country that lives by the principles of Gross National Happiness and we believe good health is integral to a citizen."

The 28-year-old acknowledges that he has no facts or figures to prove the campaign’s success. But, he adds, "I don’t think there is a huge black market. And the ones who are selling illegally do get caught. Let me ask you something, when you walk in Thimphu, do you see anyone smoking? No? That means we are on the right way to making Bhutan smoke-free," he says.

Tenzing Lamzang is a proud Bhutanese non-smoker. He tried smoking once when he was young, but hated it so much that never lighted another cigarette. "I don’t support the criminalisation of smokers, but I am proud that the laws here have made it more difficult to access cigarettes. Especially for young children."

And it is not only the health concern that holds Bhutanese non-smokers from puffing away - it’s also a social and religious taboo.

Monk Karma (who goes by one name), explains that smoking can have bad karmic consequences. "We believe that even if you touch a cigarette to your lips, it can be harmful for your karma. Guru Rimpoche, our religious leader, strictly denounces smoking," he says.

The monk, who studied at Tamshing Dratshang monastery in central Bhutan, also narrates a legend behind Buddhism’s non-smoking history. "There was a demon who fought with Guru Rimpoche and then cursed the land where his blood was spilled. He said that anything that grows on this land will only destroy those who consume it. Tobacco grew out of that land," Karma explains.

However, the legal, social and religious taboos still don’t stop persistent smokers from lighting up. On a Saturday night in downtown Thimphu, youngsters are partying at a popular club. The dance floor, the rest rooms and the lobbies are filled with smoke. Having had a few drinks, a girl puffs away her cigarette and says, "Who cares about the rules and laws as long as they don’t bother me?"